Category: Uncategorized

The glut for the past 2 weeks has been very real, I had to take digestion pills during the weekend in Singapore due to consuming more food than I can digest. The torture I put myself through was crazy and I didn’t stop, I even bought myself a bottle of pills to prepare for the next bout of food.

I mean I flew 8 hours up here not for nothing.

I’m currently in Malaysia, the land I spent my childhood and early teens in. Compared to my many trips down in the past since moving to Melbourne, I was able to reconnect with my middle school friends and going to Singapore to meet with my high school friends.

It is no secret to those who knew me before Australia that I was a skinnier, much slimmer, much fitter girl. I had put on a total of 10kgs post-KL and I have been nowhere near to going back to the original 47kg self in 2010.

However, this holiday, the glut has been so real. The food has been amazing and the prices were so cheap and I couldn’t help myself. My middle school friend had just returned from her UK studies for good, so I spent the last few days just catching up with her and being the ultimate Groupon buddy (as well as luxury window shopping things I cannot afford).

She found a free slimming deal.

It’s freeeeee..she says, and she would do it with me. (She is 160cm, under 50kgs, clearly doing it for the fun of it).

I wouldn’t pay to do something like this, never. But I was always curious with what was involved. My mum mentioned to me that she tried it once post-pregnancy but it doesn’t work at all and is fully gimmicks. But I could try it out for myself if I wanted, it was free after all. Surrounded by blunt Asian family and friends, being told I am ‘much meatier’ than before can be over-bearing, this should be harmless.

So, I will now narrate this adventure.

ConsultationI knew that the slimming centres giving out free treatments was too good to be true, these places sell packages for thousands of bucks. “Proven results” banners are everywhere. It was cheap treatment and it wasn’t a 1 day job, people sign up packages for months.

The consultant gave me a horrified glare when I told her I was only here for 2 weeks in KL and that I was from Melbourne. She still tried to hard-sell me a RM4000 package, saying that I could “come in everyday and will go back to the pre-Melbourne weight” i call bullshit.

She asked me for my ‘target areas’. Tummy… only, I replied. She made me take off my top.

So this is how they hard sell and guilt trip fat people. I told you only tummy. Thanks for telling me I’m an all-around fatass.

I insisted that I will begin with the free 1st treatment first to decide. 1stly, I couldn’t afford (I didn’t tell her because I wanted my free session), 2ndly… what if it’s some stupid gimmick I would sell myself into.

Steam-RoomWas told it is meant to open up my body pores (what for).

Firstly, I felt like dying. It’s like a sauna, much hotter, much stuffier. I felt like being dumped in a kettle. Next to my cubicle was a fat lady going through her paid package.

Secondly, I can’t breathe. My nostrils burned as I breathed, thank God they provided me a towel for me to breathe through or I would’ve died or be diagnosed with burnt nostrils for life.

Thirdly, I don’t see the purpose. It was a steam room, the lady told me I will sweat. I was wet all over 10 seconds into the 10 minutes I was in there, I swear 90% of moisture on me during the whole duration was the steam, 10% sweat (but I doubt it).

Suffocating Torture. Why fat ladies WHY.

PicturesMade me strip and take photos of my fat self. (for before and after effects… they didn’t know I wasn’t coming back) While taking my photos and measuring the diameters of my fats, slimming lady discovers I could speak and understand Mandarin.. immediately stops bitching about my friend and I in Mandarin.

“I thought you guys were English educated….” she says. Well, you didn’t ask for my primary school did you ey?

Lavender ScrubI feel no scrub. What scrub. Slimming lady just slathered 50% oil and 50% water misture on my body… “preparing for the next step” she says…”scrub is to remove dead skin”…

There was no scrub… so no dead skin was removed.

Hot Blanket
With 50% oil mixture still on me.. she made me lie on a sheet of plastic. Next thing I knew was me being wrapped in plastic, a heavy blanket wrapped around me… I was marinated meat.

“20 minutes…” she said, and left me there to marinated.. in the room.. alone.

20 minutes felt like 20 hours. Worst 20 minutes of my life.

About 5 minutes in I felt like cooked meat. I felt the mixture and I swear by this moment, I confirmed that the mixture was probably 80% water, 20% oil and lavender smell was artificial as fart.

I was boiling meat.

At 12 minutes in, I knew I was dying. I don’t know why women put these people in business. oh my goodness it made me miss hot pilates… A LOT.

God saved me, I discovered an emergency button. I managed to squirm my arms out of my boiling burrito sack of marination and press it. Slimming lady came it, told me “8 more minutes” (that’s how I knew I was 12 minutes in).. and ditched me again.

Was apparently not well cooked enough. (Purpose of that procedure was apparently to “increase blood circulation”.. more like “increase chances of death”)

ShowerTo wash of my marinate

Fat BurnerHAHAHA I don’t know how to begin this.

Slimming lady lathered on and ampuole to help me “burn my fats”, she lathered them on my fat arms, fat thighs, fat tummy.

2 minutes later, I felt like they were on fire… “Oh they are burning your fat” she says… more like burning my body and the next day I will have no skin.

She then wrapped my fat parts with this wirey stuff that was hooked onto a ‘slimming machine’ that will give out the vibrations to “help stimulate and work your muscles”..

So this is how lazy people exercise… pay thousands of bucks to get their muscles vibrated. oh my goodness.

I slept throughout the vibration session. I don’t know if anything was activated. If anything, my muscles were relaxed and this was the best part of the session. I slept.

Conclusion

Please. Don’t. Go.

I don’t understand why women do it. Yea it may have worked if you attended 50 times of that, but it’s all a marketing business gimmick. Proven results can come after maybe 1 year and over thousands of dollars wasted. I recommend hot pilates.

The atrocious fact was they actually wanted my dangerously skinny friend to sign up so that she can ‘prevent herself from getting fatter’. Are you kidding, she needs to put on weight.

Yes. I know I do occasionally suffer from self-esteem body image issues especially when being surrounded by old friends who remind me of my old shape. This time I took a step too far, but it was free.

I treated it as an adventure. Solely for the experience. But if I had really been engrossed in my body-image and if I really was my old self before Jesus, I probably would have signed up (and get scolded by my parents in the process). Honestly, it can be quite easy to fall-victim to these stuff, that’s why they’re still in business. (many ladies were going through their paid treatment while I was going through my free one).

Why? Because the outside world can be over-bearing. It will be a lie if I told you it never affected me. It would be a lie if I told you that I didn’t feel anything when the slimming centre told me I was too fat.

The commercial world is out there to really hard sell stuff to us based on our flaws. I swear I only read this on the media, but yesterday was my first-hand experience of being marketed based on my flaws.

I’m sorry but regardless of my weight. If I exercise and lose weight in the process, that is God’s blessing, if not, I’ll be the way God wants me to be. I don’t know why women would pay to go through semi-death, please invest them in a good body massage (much cheaper too) if you have that much money.

Here’s the deal, I’m the worst at decision making. It makes me wonder sometimes why I got picked into being a leader, leader’s are meant to be the best at decision making. Being indecisive is the worst trait of a leader (well I get annoyed if my leaders can’t make a decision). Which brings me to this, I’m a current kids leader that’s being lead by a kids pastor but currently being offered a position to run the toddler section as a proper leader alongside the kids pastor. I can’t decide. omgosh i actually can’t decide.

A normal human being would have leapt on it. I’m the kind who weighs-in the pros and cons, it’s easy if one outweighs another but it’s the worst if they even out and the weight balance is straight. I mean, THAT’S NOT THE POINT OF THE WHOLE PROCESS. The more time I take to decide the more indecisive I get, it completely defeats the purpose of weighing out the issues.

I thought maybe because my brain can’t help itself and God wasn’t talking to me in booming voices, I should talk to people, people in church and the family (because God can speak to us through people, right?). The decision was divided and I’m back to square one. STILL UNDECIDED.

I decided to lay it off, since my senior pastor was away in America and he said he’ll discuss more about it with me regarding the position when I’m back. Besides, I had more pressing issues as a law student such as how to complete 2 law assignments due on the same day without head explosions. I’ve managed that well and better than the decisions I had to make, my head is still intact and it has to be as I have one more test due this Saturday on Constitutional Law.

Then the text came. My senior pastor (SP) is back from America. I have not made a decision. He wants to do an interview next week.

Brain went on panic mode. The cool calm and collected manner I was planning to have for this Saturday’s test went off-course. SP even asked for my CV, like whuuut… I haven’t even drafted my Consti answers and my CV hasn’t been updated in months.

Times like these, a burning bush wouldn’t scare me. I’d rather a burning bush with God’s voice telling me to decide with A or B than walk around like and aimless drunk.

I’ve been listening to heaps of Chad Veach podcasts the past couple of weeks, many rechoing the main message that God has a plan and that if we stray, He’ll bring as back anyway.

Panic mode clearly didn’t help. I told myself that I should fast and pray on the matter but I didn’t. I ended up shoving it aside, convincing myself I had more priorities like my law assignments. I did not hand the issue to God, which I told my friends I would and that “He’ll help me decide” because I have other things to do. I deliberately dumped it in the corner. I thought I had 2 weeks on the matter but 2 weeks felt like 2 days and now SP is back and I need an answer.

Light Bulb moments

There is a significant difference with leaving the issue with God and dumping it aside and let it rot. God is not going to pick it up for use. He helps us when we are in need, yes, but we have to do the action, ourselves. As in we have to actively pray about it, it should not affect every minute of our lives but neither should be completely ignore it. We have to hand it to God with our own hands in complete surrender and ask for His guidance daily on the matter.

So just after a couple of days after writing my bottle opener revelation post (just before)… was stalking my cousin’s blog (just like what cousins do NBD) and found something complementing the topic! Too good to not share!

There is this growing trend (actually maybe it was there all along but I never noticed it until recently) of our generation seeking relationships with urgency and viewing singleness (or a lack of experience with relationships) as sub-par or undesirable.

There is just SO much wrong with this mindset.

I could go on for years about how much I think this mindset is flawed but for the sake of attention span in reading I will try and summarise. Here goes:

Let me give you a scenario which is all too common for both guys and girls in our young adult stage of life. The situation is two friendship groups of people of the same age and mixed gender for both groups meet for the first time. For the next few hours to weeks, all everyone is thinking of is “who out of this group of people would be compatible with…

So my blogspace has been pretty much the only online outlet where I overshare my life stories. Yesterday I leveled up and decided to share a bit on my Facebook with the hashtag #raremomentsioversharemylife. lol.

I spent a good 15 mins staring at the post and proof-reading before hitting ‘post’, stark differences to my wordpress behavior. I just click ‘publish’ without even proof-reading.

I did it because I felt like I needed to share that aspect of my life, also a sorta little thanks post to the people around me who helped got my dance project in church going.

However, my oversharing was only 50% of what really happened so here I am to ramble the full bits.

I remember the exact moment my parents told me that being a dance teacher as a profession was a terrible idea. We were in the car, in the shopping centre carpark basement in 1 Utama shopping centre, I was in the backseat, I had just finished my ballet class of the evening.

Ballet teachers don’t earn sufficient money. That was the main gist I got from the talk. I wasn’t a fantastic dancer anyway, my parents only sent me to ballet classes because they just wanted me to have exposure, a hobby, an experience, not a profession. They said there were far more better dancers than me in this world and I would never be able to reach that competitive environment, “our family isn’t made of athletes, there has been no family history of good athletes”. Basically, there has been no successes in that area, I shouldn’t try. Funny fact was that my dad’s elder sister was a part-time ballet teacher at the time but my dad dismissed it as being just a side hobby… again. They finally agreed that I can do it in the future after I get professional degree and get a professional job and just do it as a side hobby thing like my aunt.

I was hurt. But there was some truth in their message. I wasn’t the best in my class, my teachers would forever critique my technique instead of complimenting it. There were girls built with far better ballerina bodies than I did with the technique quality of pretty much close to principal dancer. I would fail to qualify even to audition for the Australian Ballet, okay maybe I would but I would be kicked out 1st round. Professional ballet training was out of the question.

Reality slowly crept in and I continued the ambition of being a dentist growing up. I then joined a new class where my new ballet teacher, who was an architect by day and ballerina by night, blew my mind. I told my mum, “I’m going to grow up and be like Ms Boon”. She was so boss as, she was the only teacher that saw the gift in me and when my mother wanted me to stop classes to concentrate on my academics, she persuaded my mum not to.

I got my ACL in my teens. Pursuing something of a dance nature was completely out of the question. My dual work-life dreams completely shattered. I took some casual classes in ballet later one but my knees never felt the same again and grand-jetes makes my knees cry instead of joy.

Then the church told me to make a dance group in sunday school. It was years after all those dreams and ambitions, I was over it and completely thrown them away to the extent I had forgotten about it. I was so hesitant at the offer but took it anyway. (mainly also because he announced to the parents that there was a dance group happening before I gave a proper ‘yes’).

Yesterday my girls performed during Sunday Service. The gush of joy I felt when I saw them nailed the moves. For weeks I did not know if it was even possible, 90% of them not from a dance background. Simple steps took them weeks to grasp, my co-leader and I were stressed to the core. But they nailed it on performance day and the feeling was so much better than receiving a distinction in my exam. No joke.

God made it happen.

He remembered that dream I had even when I tucked it away saying it wasn’t possible to reach it again. It wasn’t the professional teaching I had dreamt of but more. It was the sharing of His gift of dancing nonetheless and it made it so much more worth it because I witnessed the growth in every single girl over the weeks of practice. I was given the opportunity to be more than a dance teacher, I became a role model. I felt Gods work through every single moment of the process and it didn’t hit me until performance day, that this had been my dream as a little girl.

I was at the bottom of the stage smiling at the girls and telling them to smile back to the audience, the same way my teachers did when I was younger. “You don’t want the camera to take a sad pic of you dancing”. I realize that I was saying the phrases my teachers use to tell me, this time to the younger girl, my girls. I was living it, the dream of being a dance teacher one day and God made it possible because He knows the yearnings of our hearts. He gave me more than I imagined.

The world can say it’s not possible but if Jesus says yes, nobody can say no. He will make it happen in due course, no matter how long it takes. Have faith.

‘You don’t have enough faith,’ Jesus told them. ‘I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.’” Matthew 17:20

I’ve been wrestling with myself for the past few weeks if I should continue writing. There had been many occasions where I’ve entered the site with a blank page in focus, gazillions of ideas flow into my mind and I just don’t know where to start… in the end, I will close the page and tell myself to get going with life instead of lamenting on them.

It hasn’t really been intentional avoidance either, the past few weeks, despite being 3/4 of them holidays, I’ve been so occupied with church work and paid work and everything in general. God has provided me so much over the holidays with productivity, but for some reason, I feel like I’m not spending enough with Him. It’s not just that, it’s been the first holiday where I did not start a K-drama on (shockwaves everywhere).

Just this weekend, I gave 2 Sunday School messages in 2 consecutive days in 2 churches. I’ve never done anything like this before, along with the added activity of cooking within the message (we were doing a kind of Masterchef series for the kids to be engaged with the message). I agreed to do the 1st one as a ‘rehearsal’ for the second day. Everything went as plan, my boss was happy with it and I received pretty good feedback. Mindset was feeling that I can bring on my A game the next day.

Sunday early morning, we got a text that my boss/leader had to go to the hospital for an existing health condition. My head swirled a bit as I hopped off my bed. I was the speaker today, my leader is not around, the utensils will be half gone, oh my…

I rushed my Sunday morning self-prep for church and dashed to the kitchen for all the pots and pans and ingredients for the lesson and message. Not to mention I also had a dance rehearsal before Sunday School with my girls dance group and my co-leader and I were meant to be doing their masks for the dance.

I could feel my heart rate pumping as I drove to church, I could feel the tears welling but I didn’t know why. My car was playing me Kpop songs about ‘happy endings’ that shouldn’t be playing, so irrelevant, but I couldn’t reach my iPod to change the playlist.

I kept repeating to myself that everything was fine, that I will be okay. I regretted the lack of devotions I should be doing during the holidays instead of burying myself in work. If only you did those, read the devotion books instead of the daily verses from the app. You wouldn’t feel this way.

I unloaded my pots and pans, got to my kids church area, I saw my friends. Everything will be okay. Then I realize I left my phone in the car and ran back to retrieve it.

On the way back, it came, I could not catch my breathe and I could my heart pounding. Not Good. fear fear fear and my anxiety attack was back. The toilet. It was the only place I knew that was safe since a child, these things can come and go there without anybody knowing it happened.

There have been occasions during these moments where once I’m in the toilet, I do not come out, it can be hours. It can’t happen, not this time.

Nobody ever knows about what happens to me during a nervous breakdown/crazy attack. It’s one of those terrible weaknesses I feel ashamed of, like I wasn’t strong enough to carry on and suck it up. Of all days, on the day I had to preach about the Holy Spirit, it comes.

I had to tell someone or else the day would be worse than expected. For the first time, I texted, I texted for help. Help came and help came with prayer and I felt God telling me that it’s okay to let it out beyond the toilet cubicle.

Yesterday I gave a message about the gift of the Holy Spirit and how it gave me courage. Yesterday it gave me the courage to step out of that toilet cubicle.

The Holy Spirit knows what to do. Trust. Faith. Guidance. He provides all that.

So basically taking those single eggs that will ripen one at a time for every month in the next 40+ years of our lives ever since the age of puberty. If unfertilized, gushing of the blood from the lady parts will happen, also known as the period or the ladies best friend.

Females have all our eggs God-given to us, all few hundred thousands of them, since the day of our birth. Yes, God already planned the birth of our children on the day of our births… how crazy is that? So why freeze them eggs when we have plenty and going to get one every month for the next 40 years (till menopause)? Well, studies have shown that apparently, we have an ideal period of time where the eggs that

Well, studies have shown that apparently, we have an ideal period of time where the eggs that pop out of the ovum are “ideal”, yea I know… it’s like smarter babies or something, eggs fertilized after that ideal period will be deemed “terrible”.

Okay, not that bad, but those babies will have higher risks of abnormal birth or diseases in the future.

Hence, the desperation of women to get pregnant before the age of 36, the desperation to get married before 30, if they want a lot of kids, and the desperation to find their soulmate before another ideal age which I can’t keep up with.

I had a catch up with my high school friends last week and one of them was telling me how her sister’s firm was sponsoring the freezing of eggs of their female employees, what? wow. Talk about company benefits right there, that’s incredibly generous of them… I mean bionic babies are not cheap.

Bionic babies are expensive babies, they are risky and can cost more than a Ferarri, yes a big fat nice luxury car, imagine that speed and joy you can have (if you like those things). I guess to some die-hard wannabe parents, babies will provide the same speed (chasing around) and joy (laughter), hence worth the same cost of money. I’ve personally known parents who’ve undergone the bionic method (IVF) method and failed.

I’ve personally known parents who’ve undergone the bionic method (IVF) method and failed. They were loaded, but the loss of a potential child, 3 times, was too much for the mother, she quit her job and fell into depression.

Bionic test-tube or natural, the fertilization of a sperm and egg is life.This could honestly lead on to another pro-life debate which I’m keen… next post!

I’m not gonna lie but I’ve honestly considered freezing my eggs before, I mean I’m shedding all these God-given eggs every month, why can’t I keep them? They’re gonna be wasted!! They are life too! Aren’t they? They are potential babies! Potential children! Potential life! Why can’t I freeze them?

I remembered openly voicing my opinions on this topic during family gatherings, only to be met with disapproving faces. I come from a multi-faith background, so Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Atheist uncles and aunties are present, all disapproved.

“Not a natural way of having babies, not good, bad luck to the babies.”

My reason for this is due to the environment we are now in, the strong emphasis of having a career in a woman instead of motherhood, this sense of female empowerment and all that feminism. Women in current society want to be a force to reckon with, we want equality, we want the same respect we deserve in the workplace, be that strong lady that God have created us to be.

If you’re telling me biblically women are meant to be in the household…
go read your bible again. There are strong God-fearing women in the bible and they are a force to be reckon with… so shush.

But motherhood, will it get in the way? Society certainly thinks it will, hence the company perks of freezing the eggs of employees. 35 years of age is prime time in the commercial world, you either make it or break it, and motherhood can be a dealbreaker (I mean 9 months of carrying, plus those hormonal changes).

I know there’s been many pro-life groups and Christian lobbyist strongly against this idea, against the Godly way of procreation.

Honestly, I am on the fence with this. Bionic babies have brought joy to many families, if it was cruelty and unethical, there wouldn’t be such a growing market for such a technology and treatment.

What is your opinion?

p/s: my 3 years in a science degree has not been wasted, I still have a deep passion for science… deep deep down. Science and Law. Much nerd, Level Asian.

It’s been a while since I’ve checked in this site (actually I did, I have a couple of serious drafts still in process), so this is a less serious… lighter note.. check in to say hi post.

There’s heaps that went on over the past month since my last post. Good and the bad, as always, God wants to keep a balance in our learning curves. The good comes as a reward for overcoming those bad challenges (in my perspective).

Bad points first. I fell incredibly sick on easter break, got myself a horrible eye infection which made my left eye swell and throb double its size. Still has a scar and occasional awkward creasing here and there but it’s healing so praise God! However that whole episode made me so preoccupied of wanting to heal everything faster made me slack behind in uni work, so technically right now, I shouldn’t be here but continue one trying to finish my assignments.

Good points. I have to say, so many I can’t begin. My eye swelling is gone so I’m incredibly happy. I am leading a girls dance group (for like primary aged girls)! We haven’t started yet but I am so excited!! Probably more than I should be. This wasn’t the original reaction I gave when I was first told to do it, in fact I must admit I probably gave a pretty reluctant face. But going home and sleeping on the idea and falling back on my childhood dreams of being a dance teacher one day, I’ve come to embrace this whole idea, in fact I’m pretty darn excited.

Next, new music. ohmygosh. New music. Despite my sick week, I managed to sneak in a night at the Planetshakers conference last week and God blessed my ears with some amazing music that my soul can just cry out to Him everyday with them, no joke. It’s not just Planetshakers but I managed to encounter some pretty some pretty sweet sounds a few weeks before when procrastinating on Youtube (Bethel Musiccccccccccc).

Anyway here are those sweet links that will be too selfish of me not to share!

so gooooooooood

listening to this takes me to a magical place I can just go to heaven

I feel so empowered after listening to this… it makes me feel like I can do anything (I can)

So I should get back to what I’m meant to be doing, being the good student I should be.

I should add, I’m back to some fasting too. First one was a success so second round here we go 🙂

I promise after this assignment I’ll be back with more posts and music and shindigs.